George Rock
History of the American Field Service
1920-1955

CHAPTER IV

The fortunes of war and the passage of time had already made necessary many changes in the original plans, and the continued growth of the Field Service was to cause yet more. Although it might have seemed to grow quickly, the American Field Service in the Middle East was at first planned to be brought to its full strength of 400 ambulances and about 800 men by a few large shipments over a matter of a couple of months, using chartered vessels to transport both men and equipment simultaneously. As soon as the United States entered the war, however, both shipping priorities and manpower became problems that were only to increase as time passed, and they ultimately caused revision of the original expectations. The first five units, which left the United States between November 1941 and February 1942, brought well over 250 men to the Middle East. But after these, very few large units were possible, and only 6 of the first 40 units included more than 50 men. It was two years before the commitment to the British in the Middle East was finally fulfilled in a modified form. Yet the size of the operation was more than tripled between February and November 1942.

In view of the international developments since the previous October, the original AFS commitment was reconsidered at a meeting of those concerned at GHQ MEF in May 1942. By then the Field Service had in the Middle East 267 active members and 260 ambulances, of which only 141 were being operated by the Service (of the others, 56 were on loan and being used and 63 were being held as reserve). It was unofficially agreed at this meeting to set the goal at two AFS ACCs of 4 platoons each, and priorities for shipping the additional men and ambulances were requested from Washington, the additional personnel being then considered more important than the 140 ambulances.

The voyage overseas was for each volunteer the beginning of the war and remained one of its most vivid experiences. Beyond that, there was extreme diversity to crossings. Every bit of space available on ships going in the right direction was utilized---units being thrown together at the last minute, when necessary; or, more often, kept waiting, after a hasty assembling, by a change in ship's plans. The accommodations varied from the agony of bunks in reconditioned tennis courts, through berths on freighters, to the luxury of cruise and hospital ships. At first the usual route was from an East Coast port around the Cape of Good Hope to either Suez or Tewfik, occasionally with side-trips to Indian ports or arrival at Basra followed by the overland trip to Cairo. A few units left from the West Coast and one went from San Francisco to Perth in Australia and then to Persia, going from Baghdad to Cairo by bus, truck, paddle steamer, and train. Another, stranded at Durban, reached Cairo by a combination of plane and river boat. Four units (numbers 8, 11, 17, and 22) were torpedoed without casualty to AFS members, most of their members subsequently re-embarking in other units. These early voyages took anything up to 80 or 90 days, and a group from Seattle might take, with the wait in New York, a full five months to get from their homes to Cairo.

Not until the Mediterranean was opened to Allied shipping in May 1943 was the time reduced. Then, too, American shipping became available direct to Algiers and, later yet, to Italian ports. These short and uneventful trips, with neither the extremes of comfort or discomfort of the early crossings, lacked much of the vividness of the experience. They did not give the feeling of going to the end of the earth that came with the length of the roundabout voyage. Lost, too, was the opportunity for work with the ships' crews that had made many of the early trips more pleasant, as well as for the first attempts at training by way of lectures and demonstrations in first aid, elementary mechanics, and so forth, according to the learning that was available on shipboard.

American Field Service Unit 1 to the Middle East had gone to Syria as two sections of 1 AFS ACC, each section having 25 ambulances. Units 2 and 3 then brought more than enough personnel for another section, so that the three sections were all overstaffed. With the arrival of the large Unit 4, the Syrian veterans were brought to Tahag again, reorganized into two platoons of 33 ambulances each, and renamed "X" AFS ACC, the new men in Syria then being named 2 AFS ACC. In June the two companies were reorganized into a single company of 4 platoons and renamed 11 (AFS) ACC (485 Coy RASC). Further units arriving in September 1942 allowed for the formation of the 5th and 6th platoons-known as "W" AFS ACC during their formation and renamed 15 (AFS) ACC (567 Coy RASC) when the group was sent into action in the desert---leaving the Field Service only two platoons short of its amended commitment.

Then came the moment that no one had ever really believed in: on 6 November 1942 the enlistment contracts of the members of Unit 1 expired. In advance of the date, questionnaires were sent out to its members in an effort to learn what they intended to do, and the advantages of remaining in the Field Service were properly pointed out; but the advance indications seemed discouraging. S. Gilmore spoke for many when he wrote: "I am faced with the decision of whether or not to come home this fall and am quite incapable of deciding and will regret either decision." Although the big and apparently victorious British offensive had already begun, the lures of military commissions, better conditions, better pay, and seeing loved ones again after more than a year of separation proved too strong to be resisted by many. Three-quarters of those members of the unit still in the Middle East at the expiration of their contracts either left for other civilian jobs in the Middle East or Eritrea, joined the U.S. Armed Forces, or simply went home. And later only just more than a quarter of Unit 2 re-enlisted. From then on, new units had a hard job to cover the steady drain of expired contracts, and due to the uncertainties of shipping this sometimes left ambulances in the field briefly immobilized for want of drivers. When Unit 37 was later in arriving than had been expected, for example, in order to repatriate Unit 4 on schedule in February 1943 the Syrian platoons were stripped and left very seriously understaffed so that the desert platoons could continue to advance with Eighth Army.

Any big unit, although obviously a big boost on arrival, held the threat of this serious problem to come. Lengthening the contract from one-year-from-date-of-departure to one-year-from-date-of-arrival, as from Unit 32 on, while it evened out occasional discrepancies between fast and slow passages, was no help for this larger problem of maintaining enlistments. (Not until the two-year-leave program was instituted in late 1943 did the personnel situation begin to become to a certain extent stabilized.)

To be sure, a number of those who had left were later to return, but New York's problems with manpower were never so great as with shipping, as Mr. Wallace wrote in August 1942: "Shipping still the neck of the bottle. We have a goodly lot of top-notch volunteers ready---but needing bottoms. Ain't that a fix? Neck and bottle but no bottom." In spite of the steady stream of units arriving in the Middle East, not until Unit 37 arrived on 21 March 1943 was it possible to form the 7th platoon.

More ambulances were needed, as well as more personnel, to fill out two operating companies, not only because there had never been more than 260 of the necessary minimum of 264 cars in the Middle East, but because by then 62 of these 260 had been lost in the campaigns. In November 1941 the first motions had been made for obtaining the last 140 ambulances for the Middle East commitment. The necessary priorities to obtain and ship the ambulances were requested, with 20 copies of each document needed to cover all the bureaus involved. By the end of 1941, however, the U.S. Army was taking all ambulances for its own needs, though it promised to withhold 140 for the AFS (from the batch on order for delivery in the spring of 1942), if the need for them would be confirmed by GHQ MER. Middle East cabled that the ambulances would be needed at the rate of 40 a month until completion of the order, but not starting until October 1942. By that time, however, the build-up for General Montgomery's October offensive had so changed the priorities situation that shipment of the ambulances was necessarily delayed yet again. And when the cars were needed for the 7th platoon in March, 1943, the Field Service found itself balked by a situation entirely out of its control. The ambulances had been applied for and turned over to AFS in the United States, but Middle East again had to request the priority for shipping them. For the 7th platoon, then, in May 1943 the British arranged to loan some cars from their own reserves and later that summer they equipped a platoon of 567 Company. The 7th platoon was given a mixture of unwieldy Austins and small and delicate Humbers, and 567 Company got a platoon of Humbers. Not until October, 1943 did AFS Dodges finally begin to arrive in the Middle East to replace these borrowed British cars.

In the meantime, the four platoons in the desert were reorganized as a single unit with the name of 567 Company, causing considerable distress to veterans proud of the records made in the desert by "X," 11, and 485 Company's platoons. Thus the 7th platoon became C Platoon of 485 Company, the new name for the platoons in Syria, and drove north to join it. When the 8th platoon was finally formed in November, 1943, it was issued Dodge ambulances from the last 140, the remainder being sent to Italy as replacements.

It was frequently said that the U.S. Army used double and the British half again the number of men the Field Service found necessary to run its ambulances. While this was in part a recognition of the individual energy and initiative of the AFS members, reasonable pride must not blind anyone to the fact that those extra men simply were not there. The chronic shortages of personnel were often briefly troublesome, and their first consequence was the delay of the desert assignment. The original AFS commitment had included a complement of mechanics to look after the ambulances, but these proved impossible to enlist after America's entry into the war. Although amateur efforts at repairing the inevitable breakdowns were often inspired, it became increasingly apparent, as the Service grew, that the available mechanical skill, however close to genius in certain individuals, would not be enough to go around. Emergency help was given by army units in Syria; but more was needed from the Service itself than the daily maintenance tasks, which, under the best conditions, were not always performed and, even by the most eager, were not always understood.

When "X" Company was organized at Tahag in May 1942, a workshop platoon of British Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) personnel was attached (as was later done for the platoons in Syria), to deal with major repairs and periodic inspections. The assignment was officially considered as "temporary," and for a long time thereafter new staff officers at GHQ MEF would discover the apparent irregularity and would write to ask whether the Field Service were yet in a position to supply the platoon of mechanics from its own ranks. Although attempts were made in this direction, and a number of volunteers took the classes in mechanics at the Middle East Training Center, not enough material was ever on hand. Ultimately the assignment was rephrased so that workshops "may be British personnel when AFS are not available," and no more was heard of the matter.

As it was finally arranged, the attached British personnel and equipment for 1 company were as follows: a quartermaster (QM) department of a Quartermaster Sergeant, 3 corporals, and 6 cooks, as well as 1 cookhouse, 1 ration, 1 petrol, 1 stores, and 2 water lorries, each with a driver. The actual workshops, under the command of a Captain, comprised 1 Mechanist Sergeant Major (MSM), 1 Staff Sergeant, 1 Sergeant, 2 clerks, 4 master mechanics, 9 fitters, 2 welders, 4 electricians, 2 coppersmiths, 2 coachtrimmers, 2 blacksmiths, 1 vulcanizer, 2 carpenters, 2 turners, and 1 painter, as well as a driver for each of 2 breakdowns (tow trucks), 1 spare parts lorry, 1 technical vehicle (equipped with electric lathes, battery charging set, paint sprayer, and electric welding apparatus), 1 luggage and personnel carrier, several motorbikes, and a 15-cwt. for the captain. "From the variety of their personnel and equipment," Captain Howe later wrote, "one can gather what an important and invaluable part of the company the workshops are. They have performed literally hundreds of repairs and made a great many alterations and replacements without which every ambulance in the company would have soon been off the road."

Later units found maintenance and workshops part of the established picture. To the earlier volunteers, however, they were a revelation, a sight worthy of a tourist's rapt gaze and a reporter's careful attention. "Our new workshops, up in Syria, are very imposing," T. Barton wrote for the AFS Bulletin. "Under Lt. Mathewson's eagle eye the air is now ringing with the dinkings and clankings of tires being changed; and on all sides one can see happy faces peering into motors with little exclamations of 'Oh, is that the distributor? and 'Your generator, old boy, is miserable!' We did hear that some ambitious youth poured nearly four gallons of oil into the engine, because, as he explained, 'the needle on the oil gauge persisted in stopping at the half-way mark.' But such blunders are rare indeed, and you must admit this boy was willing. Tom Morris was heard to mutter darkly that he'd bet he could get his letter from the Socony Station any day, and Captain Ives avowed himself on more than intimate terms with an exhaust pipe. Life over here is not all driving through shot and shell, and we have more than a passing sympathy for the lad who, brandishing a grease gun, exclaimed: 'Well, here I go, weaning that damned ambulance again.' just before we left workshops this morning, the staff car was driven in by Joe Latham. He was wearing coveralls. 'H'mmm,' said a Tommy fitter, 'got his playsuit on."'

To give Field Service volunteers more thorough training and to weed out those unfit for work overseas, because of either physique or habitual behavior, it was many times suggested that there be established in the United States a camp to which all volunteers should be sent for a set period of time or at least for a few days pending departure. Letters outlining the running of such a camp were regularly sent by the members to the higher powers of AFS, and several generous well-wishers offered quarters suitable for the purpose. However, although both the desirability and the possibility seemed to have been many times proved, such a camp was never established.

The chief reasons for this negative action were, again, the draft and shipping. The complexities of the draft situation were such that the AFS might have trained 50 men, of whom it could obtain draft deferments for only 5 (which would have been a wasteful expense), or that the AFS might have obtained releases for 50 men, of whom it wished to return 20 to the mercies of the local draft boards (which the boards would not have allowed). In addition, the whole arrangement to ship men overseas whenever there were openings left that situation so uncertain---as to both places available and date of sailing---that the proposed camp would have had to be capable of holding up to 125 men for indeterminate (and often very long) periods, while sometimes there would have been no opportunity to send men there at all.

To be prepared for all possibilities, the camp would have caused the administration budget to exceed the 10% allowed by law. And, if there were some types whose inadequacies would have been noted in camp, there were as many who could have passed through with misleadingly good records, so that the high expense of such a camp could never have been totally justified. Finally, the camp would have needed a leader of great gifts, who, had he ever been forthcoming, would have been more useful overseas.

At first I used to wonder why they accepted these types. But now I wonder where they ever found them.

---ROBERT THOMSEN

As the Field Service grew, so did the number of its problem children. Although the New York office had to interview approximately 600 applicants to find 60 men to send overseas, not all of these 60 turned out to be the monsters of zeal and virtue promised by their sponsors. The problem of discipline first arose during the long voyage of Unit 1, and the situation was not assisted when in Capetown the Volunteer's Agreement was said not to be binding. Queried about this, Mr. Galatti admitted the correctness of the interpretation, adding that "the situation is very much like someone contracting to act like a gentleman: you can't make him if he doesn't want to." It was thought that on arrival at their destination the exigencies of their work would distract the evildoers from their errant ways, and only in part did this prove a vain hope. The work in Syria, although vitally important as training, was at no point exciting and only for brief periods did it ever occupy all of the attention of all of the men.

The British Army, in the same situation, managed to sound more wistful than the AFS in its moments of greatest despair:

"The Commander has noticed lately . . . that the behavior and the turn-out of the senior other-ranks, chiefly sergeants, in the Sub Area is of a very low standard. in addition to the general slovenliness displayed when walking out (e.g. pullovers tied around necks, no caps on, bad saluting, etc.), sergeants have been noticed lately dancing in public with private soldiers, creating disturbances outside brothels when they should have been in barracks, and behaving in other ways which bring great disrepute both on their rank and on the Army generally. NCOs must be made to realize that in a foreign country their bad behavior reflects not only on the Army but on the British Nation. . . . It is pointed out that the DAPM is not out to act as a spoil-sport, but that some of the behavior of the sergeants in this Sub Area in the past has been of such a kind that it is impossible for it to be tolerated any longer."

Most Field Service men found respectable or at least discreet diversions to fill in the idle hours, but some few were betrayed into spectacular misbehavior (see p. 73). A chat with Captain King usually brought repentance and sometimes permanent reform. Public opinion took care of many other cases, as Captain King wrote, and "this should be active; should in fact make itself felt. Reports have reached me of two incidents where the NCO and men of a subunit have successfully dealt with an offending member by their own methods." Still the AFS had no disciplinary stick with which to coerce those who did not respond to reason, who did not want to co-operate, or who saw no need to assume themselves responsible for the name of the Service. Though the immediate solution seemed to be to send the wrongdoers home, even a cursory investigation of their twisted motives often proved that home was just what was wanted most in the world, so that repatriation would be equivalent to granting a reward for bad behavior. And most of the misdeeds were of too slight a nature to merit such drastic action, even when the misdeeds were repeated, as indeed came to pass.

First inquiries of how to handle the situation were met at GHQ MEF with all-around embarrassment: AFS had always presumed that the British would assume some responsibility in the matter, but GHQ was then under the impression that the Field Service would soon be taken over by either the U.S. North African Military Mission or the U.S. Army. As these hopes waned, the AFS troublemakers, bored and to all appearances limitlessly free, grew more numerous and more imaginative. Colonel Richmond was reluctant to make further appeal to the U.S. or British Armies, feeling that "the liberties of all will be curtailed and everyone will suffer for the misdeeds of a few"---until the morale of the men in the field began to dwindle as they continually saw wrongdoers going unpunished. In view of the long future, Colonel Richmond was about to attach the Field Service for disciplinary purposes to the U.S. Mission when the British Deputy judge Advocate General (DJAG) for the Middle East reluctantly promulgated the following ruling (later cited to the authorities of every new command under which AFS passed and the bulwark of all its discipline):

It is notified for your information and for the information of the members of the American Field Service under your command that so long as they are employed in the service of the British Forces and/or accompany them in the field as ambulance personnel they are subject to the British Army Act and amenable to military discipline, and in the event of a serious offense to trial by British Court Martial. This is an essential corollary of their being permitted to accompany the British troops in the field.

The crux of the matter was that AFS members were civilians; which is to say that they had not been army trained. Thus, though the army could insist on a standard of work, it could hardly insist that AFS perform in a perfectly military manner without any basic training. Necessarily, therefore, AFS members were classed not as soldiers but as "camp followers," and as such they were not, under the Army Act, "amenable to summary punishment." For a while there was uncertainty whether only British, or AFS officers as well, were prohibited from awarding summary punishment, even to the extent of five minutes confinement to barracks. The British wanted the Field Service to handle its own discipline, and AFS officers were allowed to decree what punishments they chose. But the problem had always been to have these orders backed by army authority at those times when volunteers did not feel inclined to obey. The ruling of the DJAG established the position of the Field Service within the British Army. It then remained to see what the British would do to a sinner.

So far as the AFS was concerned, the British preferred to, and quite effectively did, restrict the use of Courts Martial to such grave matters as theft and desertion. The first few Courts Martial resulted in distressingly slight punishments, which the British authorities did not always demand should be served. Once again AFS field officers began to feel that Cairo HQ was making an inadequate effort to back them in their attempts to bring even the most serious offenders to justice. After a clear case of desertion had been awarded a single day of field punishment (not to be served), the culprit was ordered to return to his unit in the field and a firm letter of distress and disappointment was sent to the DJAG. The guilty volunteer, however, refused to go back to the field and was promptly bustled off by the Military Police for the second time. Encouraged by a stiff letter from the DJAG, this time the Court awarded 30 days of field punishment, which were served.

For a spectacular embezzlement, another volunteer was awarded a solid six months of field punishment, which was served (minus 61 days for good behavior) and followed by immediate repatriation. Captain J. T. Ogden wrote of a visit to the field punishment center: "His lot was pretty grim." Once it was known that independent behavior would be allowed only to a certain point, the matter of discipline was pretty much settled, and gripes were met with the question: "Well, who drafted you?"

There remained always a small number who were frequently naughty rather than even briefly criminal, and these were the cause of a great deal more concern and paper work than their activities---for good or evil---ever merited. In justice it must be said that they pushed the limits just as hard as could be done, attempting to behave with unfettered individuality until, for one reason or another, they could go no further. Authority-baiting, in quarters where there was little other excitement, became almost an organized sport. Active duty cured this as well as all breaches of discipline except those caused by panic or bad taste, of which there were in all the years of the war but a handful.

Often the problems caused by those of unsound mind, either temporary or permanent, at first appeared to be matters for disciplinary action. These always clarified themselves before serious injustice had been done. For who could have been so heartless as to court-martial the boy who had to leave the hospital each day in order to go to the Baggage Room and wind his 27 clocks?

The assumption of individual responsibility presupposed a certain degree of determined individuality among the membership. This was undoubtedly the spirit prompting the "southern volunteer devoted to the simple life" of W. W. Phillips' classic tale:

"His simplicity manifested itself in his clothes, which were few and chronically unbuttoned. This was well enough in the field, but not in Cairo, where he was encountered by a sergeant and an officer out on a saluting parade. Of course, the volunteer neglected to salute. The sergeant might have contained himself had he recognized him as a facsimile of a soldier. As it was, he became outraged and official. After a preface, in the manner of sergeants, about being a disgrace to the King's uniform, be ordered the volunteer to put on his cap, button his shirt, pull up his socks, roll his sleeves properly, and tie his shoes. The volunteer docilely complied.

"'Now!' said the sergeant, 'walk back ten paces, about face, pass the officer, and salute him properly!'

"The volunteer recovered from the shock and walked away drawling: 'When I get ten paces away and you-all can catch me, why, you-all can kiss me!"'

As the Service grew, the need of a larger HQ establishment was more and more acutely felt. Colonel Richmond and Major Benson had set up the AFS Headquarters within the perimeter of GHQ MEF in Cairo in December 1941, Major Benson doing the typing for Colonel Richmond as well as attending to his own field of Public Relations. When Unit 1 arrived in early February 1942, a typist was finally hired---the memorable Mrs. Essie Berkovsky, who remained with the Field Service as long as it had an office in the Middle East. In early March, Major Benson was recalled to the United States to make a fund-raising lecture tour (organized and underwritten by J. H. McFadden, Jr.), and Lt. J. T. Ogden was brought down from Aley to assist Colonel Richmond as HQ office manager (continuing as such until his repatriation at the end of September). Toward the end of the month the British gave HQ a clerk---Pvt. George (Tommy) Thompson, who remained attached to AFS HQ as a pillar of strength and guide to the perplexed until the end of the war (and was attached to the office of the Historian after that). Company cashier Lt. A. T. Ogden passed back and forth between Egypt and Syria as occasion demanded. And until the end of May 1942 that was all there was. Colonel Richmond then wrote that it was "very much understaffed. I have had to neglect many things which I should like to have done."

If the Field Service had been composed of British personnel, much of the work of its HQ would have been performed by existing offices. But the British had not realized that AFS HQ would have to do for its men in the field all the diversified chores of an expeditionary force GHQ. For economy's sake, Colonel Richmond long kept his staff below the limits of the British War Establishment for an ACC headquarters, which was what had been granted the Field Service. But gradually during the summer months the absolute necessities of operations demanded further increases. In addition to keeping track of, performing services for, and supplying several hundred volunteers spread from Tobruk to the Turkish border, the nature of the organization required that certain information about the volunteers, the ambulances, and the work of both be sent to New York. Thus there was the first subdivision of the work among the four embryonic departments of Operations, Public Relations, Finance, and Personnel.

Finance was the first department to be firmly established. Lt. A. T. Ogden, the first finance master, returned to the United States because of his health and in early June this position was taken by C. H. Coster. Money had been an aggravating problem from the first. Some men had tried having their own accounts at different local banks, but an account at Beirut could have done no good to Croesus in the Western Desert, and the Field Service had to undertake to act as traveling bank for its members, both keeping track of their money and bringing it to them when and where they wanted it. This, with the constant increase in numbers, led to an impressive series of account ledgers, established under the supervision of a firm of local accountants. Then, thanks to the generosity of the American public, from 1 August 1942 the AFS was able to give $20 per month to each volunteer, and this required a yet more elaborate set-up. W. H. Perry came in to Cairo to assist Lt. Coster, and Field Cashiers were appointed to handle the accounts of those in the desert (Lt. G. H. Laiser) and in Syria (Lt. J. C. Wyllie, who was also adjutant for the Syrian platoons). In the late autumn these were succeeded by Lts. T. W. S. Craven and G. B. Myers. So well was this department organized that Captain Perry, on taking it over in February 1943, was able to write that "Captain Coster has left behind him a smooth-running department, and this is best shown by the very few complaints we receive from the men in the field, who, after all, are the ones we are working for. We all owe him no end of thanks for what he has done."

The needs of the other departments had not been so clamorous, and they continued to do only what current operations absolutely demanded. When D. M. Hinrichs and Major Benson arrived in Cairo on 15 August 1942, in advance of the large Unit 16 with which they had traveled to Capetown, there still was not enough HQ staff to do all that needed doing. Mr. Hinrichs had come out specifically to work for the Personnel Department, but he found himself greeted as the person who, from a background of business experience, could best supervise the expansion of the whole office so that it could adequately take care of the four platoons already in the field and the additional two about to be formed. With more courage than he at first realized, he accepted the assignment, and the subsequent organization and expansion of HQ were largely his doing. Later changes within the basic framework that he established were only of detail.

"Cairo," Captain Coster wrote, "---a woman who has let herself go. Not young. Overpainted, overpowdered, overscented, fat. One deplores not so much her vices, which can be amusing, as her lack of fastidiousness with regard to her own person. But definitely a lady, and with great remains of good looks. A pungent wit, too. Not quite the Venus of one's dreams; not quite, if one has had reasonable good fortune, the equal of some Venuses of one's memory. But still not without attraction."

Not all could agree with this civilized appraisal and many professed only to see the dirt of the city. The earliest units had offered precious few men who could be tempted to work for HQ, the excitement of battle being new and the volunteers being eager to get into the thick, of it. The coincidence of needing a serious operation immediately upon arrival in Cairo had brought B. C. Rumsey to the office during his convalescence in the early summer, and he went to work straightening out the personnel lists and looking after the needs of the hospitalized. Captain Hinrichs knew some men of Unit 16 who, he felt, "would fit in---Nielson Bridger and Edward Munce. I practically hauled them off the boat and brought them along to HQ," he wrote. "Later also Lester Collins joined the staff. They all did fine, unselfish, valuable work"---Bridger as a Field Cashier and Munce and (from early November) Collins in Personnel.

In spite of this initial expansion, Captain Hinrichs wrote on 2 November: "I cannot understand how we are expected to do some of the things we're called upon with only 3 officers and 4 men as an Headquarters." He had already exceeded this number, the establishment for an ACC headquarters, and he continued both to increase the number at Headquarters and to attempt to get the British to recognize the propriety of such increase as he felt was called for. Unit 26, also in early November, brought Donald Neville-Willing, who had worked. in the New York office until Captain Hinrichs requested he be sent overseas for the Cairo office. The unit also contained several men who had no desire to go to the field at all, but who soon were shown the error of their ways. Odd jobs were tended to by whatever willing transients were to hand, and soon all the things Colonel Richmond had so long wanted were fairly under way.

Current operations continued to be the primary job. These had never included the use or creation of files, of which there were none. Essential records, so far as was possible, had to be collected or reconstructed. A list of all the vehicles ever held by the Field Service was made up, so that never again could 8 ambulances appear to have vanished without trace. And with an augmented Personnel Department it was found possible to offer additional services to the men in the field, as well as to be sure of that field in which each could be found. Finally Captain Hinrichs persuaded the British to discard the War Establishment for the AFS Headquarters and to allow whatever the Service felt was necessary---at times up to 35 men. The British acknowledged this in officialese as: "There is no authorized establishment for this Headquarters: AFS must retain their own domestic control."

In October 1942 another benefit to the Service had been arranged in New York---use of the American APO service---cheaper and quicker but involving the creation of a separate department to handle the increasing flow of mail and the intricacies of double addresses, post offices, and censorship systems. The differences between the two censorship regulations for a while caused considerable confusion (in addition to being the excuse for some sorry epistolary efforts), the American rules being much stricter and much slower to relax in reference to past events. D. P. Beatty handled the AFS mail office in Cairo, organized as part of the Finance Department (and used as a huge petty-cash drawer by the men in the field, who charged purchases made in their names in Cairo against their postage accounts). The handling of these accounts was a nuisance, involving records of letters sent by each volunteer and requiring an enormous amount of time only for the bookkeeping, and ultimately it was considered more economical for AFS to pay the postage fees---first up to 10 letters per man per month and from April 1943 for all letters sent. The mail office continued an exacting and large job (how many times the censors read the appeals for more and more letters!), and Beatty was assisted, and on his repatriation in November succeeded, by R. Thomsen.

Supply and Transport (S&T) was the last department to be put in order, and the most difficult. At the time of the first desert assignment, it had been begun by Lt. L. A. Marx as one aspect of Operations, and it had functioned brilliantly for current activities. When Lt. Marx returned to the United States in one of the recurrent flurries of hope for enlarging the Service to include air ambulances, his job was taken over by Major C. N. Shaffer (TMU 397), leader of Unit 26, whose activities in behalf of the Field Service were ingenious and unceasing. For the Service his energies obtained many hitherto undreamed of goodies, not always blessed by the proper authority in triplicate, and under his leadership the Department finally became a separate entity. From early 1943 he was assisted by H. E. Waldner and R. O. Tatro.

After a list of the cars and their locations had been created, with the assistance of the Public Relations Department, there was still much for S&T to do---indeed the basic functioning of the Service depended on its activities as on those of no other department. With the advance from El Alamein, its problems increased with the distances involved. How many services the department performed is hinted at in Major Hinrichs' report of February 1943: "During the last 60 days, the transport of the Department has rolled 37,000 miles. The Department has equipped 196 new men; it has transported 325 men; it has purchased and sent out $3,400 of canteen supplies; it has acquired and forwarded 17 tons of spares and rubber; it has reconditioned 21 vehicles; it has evacuated 23 from forward areas and has gotten the same number of replacements to those areas; it has repatriated 52 men by sea and air. . . . This job has been accomplished with a department of only 4 regular men and such outside assistance as could be had from transients, etc. It is a great pleasure to be able to call . . . attention to this achievement; it would be an impertinence to praise it."

An additional duty of this busy department was the care of baggage---the whole mountainous collection of equipment, clothing, souvenirs, and miscellaneous stuff that each volunteer wanted to keep but did not need by his side for daily operations. At first this had been scattered all over the Middle East---in heaps at barracks and hotels in Cairo, Helmieh, Ikingi, Alexandria, Aley, and Baalbek. With the change of seasons, the clothing requirements changed, and there arose simultaneously from hundreds of throats the request that other costumes, which might be found in one or several places, be sent out. To facilitate such matters for the future, the whole enormous mass was brought together to a rented room (capacity: 50 tons) on the ground floor of 2 Sharia Charkas, about halfway between Shepheard's and the Kasr el-Nil Barracks, the first truckload arriving from Helmieh on 1 October 1942. This Baggage Room was first run by Lt. Laiser, who established a system of vouchers and tickets for each piece and who kept the collection orderly, available, and safe from pilfering. At the end of his enlistment, he was succeeded by Lt. K. G. Keatinge, who was followed by M. Lehds.

The Public Relations (PR) Department was always semi-autonomous, because of the special nature of the whole organization: sponsors and parents of volunteers and donors of ambulances had to be kept informed of AFS activities (with special reference to their own property) and as wide a public as could be reached had to be both made and kept aware of the work being done. Without these essentials, the organization would have ceased to grow or even to function.

While Major Benson was lecturing in the United States in the summer of 1942, the chief overseas effort was the AFS Bulletin, brilliantly edited by R. G. Dean. He elicited accounts of the life of the Service and wove these into the very ideal of such publications. Unfortunately, the effort of creating this periodical almost single-handed affected his health, and he returned to the States at the end of his year's enlistment.

Major Benson, on his return to Cairo in August, felt that the broadcast from Cairo to the United States on 25 July (Grant Parr's interview with W. I. Reiglemann, E. W. Thomas, and T. C. Torland) had been poorly handled. He discovered that the "first U.S. flag to have been raised in the Middle East by an American unit," although sent to Cairo in May had not been sent on to President Roosevelt in May or June or July and that in August it was still sitting in a file drawer, gathering not publicity, nor even honor, but dust. To remedy this situation and to forestall future lapses, he submitted very grand plans for the development of the PR Department---involving jobs for many writers as well as for the whole great flock of volunteers with cameras. Considering just one of the jobs to be done---a report on the activity of every car and a picture clearly showing its plaque and a driver---a large staff could easily have been used. The British, however, limited the number of official photographers according to the over-all size of an organization. And to keep PR from being "the largest group at Headquarters," his sense of proportion led Major Hinrichs to insist on a smaller staff and to run the risk of a slower rate of accomplishment.

During September and October, while suffering constantly from poor health, Major Benson visited many units in the field to make a motion picture of AFS activities. The film taken, in November his health forced him to return to the States for good, where he spent some months putting his film in shape for presentation. Major Benson, McElwain, and others later toured the country showing Letter from Libya both for recruiting purposes and to acquaint the contributors to the AFS with the work being done at the front.

At the end of November, C. H. Adam was brought from 15 Company, where he had been Company Clerk, to take over the Bulletin, which he managed until the lack of printing facilities forced him to stop publication in early 1944. Associate editors and photographers were appointed in each company, and the HQ PR officer collected the contributions, made the book up, and saw to printing and distribution. The initial group selected by Lt. Adam consisted of T. M. Allen, L. B. Cuddy, E. A. Fiero, and W. P. Powning, who functioned as much as authors as editors, sending in stories of the groups they were with, as, for example, Powning for Syria and the Fighting French. Later, however, Company editors were appointed, who if they wrote remained anonymous, and pieces were got from a large number of men in the field. A. J. Foley and later W. B. Lovelace performed this service for 485 Company and J. D. Leinbach for 567

E. C. Koenig and W. Elmslie, who both later drove ambulances, also worked in the PR Department during the early period, among their many other activities being the heroic compilation of the basic list of cars, plaques, and their whereabouts without which the necessary program of reports to donors could never have been commenced. The "plaque reports " as they came to be called, like personnel reports and the shortage of trained mechanics, for the duration remained one of the horrors of war. This was always the job that should be tended to more often and more thoroughly but for which there was never time on any given today. Plaque reports haunted several departments like the guilty conscience they gave, and there were many letters written about them and many resolutions made in their behalf. Much was actually done, but to do the whole job properly did not prove feasible until J. P. Brinton and C. F. Zeigler took the program over near the end of the war.

The remaining changes in the process that led to a total transformation of the AFS Headquarters by March 1943 were in the physical plant. In early December the original Baggage Room had been turned into a small and inelegant, but free, barracks for the many transients constantly coming to Cairo on errands or passing through from Syria to the desert (or vice versa). The baggage was removed to the basement of the same building, at about the time of the first storm about the hoarding of enemy armaments.

Then, remembering the AFS Club of Paris of World War I and the important part it had played in the lives of the men, Major Hinrichs asked for and got permission to organize an AFS Club of Cairo. The different circumstances brought different results---desirable, admirable, but on a much smaller scale. The third floor of the building already housing the baggage room and transients' quarters was taken, a single large flat with its entrance at 2 Sharia Fourn el Teraa el Boulaquieh---opposite the English Cathedral and with a view to the Nile and the Pyramids. It opened at the end of December 1942. As organized (and decorated) by L. G. Paine, the Club had three bedrooms, a reading room, card room, dining room, sitting room, office, and so forth. Primarily it offered a refuge from the city's expensive hotels or inadequate, service hostels to convalescents, but it accepted when there was room those on leave or in transit. Many people contributed to the Club's material comforts, and at a time of great stress (May-June 1943) Mr. Smith kindly offered three rooms of his ground-floor apartment in the same building to take care of the overflow. Paine---assisted by M. W. Sloane (very briefly), G. S. Barker, H. L. Pierce, and later C. K. Moffly---offered delicious meals and tireless hospitality, so that one convalescent wrote that it was "as nearly like a private home of good class as is physically possible . . . a refuge and a godsend."

Finally, in mid-March the offices themselves were moved from their four tiny rooms in GHQ MEF to more spacious quarters in the ground floor of the building already housing the Club, Baggage Room, and so forth. At last the Field Service had a unified Headquarters equipped to take care of all its needs. Major Hinrichs had worked hard to create this, and it is no exaggeration to say that the effort had exhausted him. Unfortunately, he never saw the completion of this Herculean task. His health demanded that lie return to the United States in early March, just before the offices were ready for occupancy. "I admire Dunbar's spirit," Colonel Richmond wrote, and he spoke for many. "He came here when most needed [and] did a superlative job in organizing this Headquarters, which none of us will forget."

In the meantime, in early December 1942 Mr. Galatti had wired Colonel Richmond: "Believe decisions affecting future of Service must be made here shortly and should not be made without your assistance. Please return immediately on leave of absence leaving Hinrichs in charge with full authority." That this was the first trumpet note of expansion was confirmed by a wire on 8 December from London to GHQ MEF. In fact, Mr. Galatti had offered an additional 200 ambulances and 500 volunteers to the British for "any theatre of operations."

During the summer and autumn of 1942 the Field Service had achieved a most healthy situation vis-à-vis both finances and volunteers. So in November Mr. Galatti had begun to sound out the British attitude toward an enlargement of AFS activities. Col. Enos Curtin, then in England with the U.S. Army, wrote that preliminary investigations would be made by Lady Marion Chesham, "an American from Philadelphia, very smart, high up in the ARC, a Major in the ATS, and a friend of Winston." On 5 December Lady Chesham wired: "Offer enthusiastically and gratefully accepted. Enquiries being made about best theatre for using." Later she wrote: "The Great Man was thrilled about the offer but could not accept them---just like that---himself, so be sent me off to see the Quartermaster General with a note from him. . . He was terribly pleased and repeated what the Great Man had said that he didn't know what they would have done without the first ambulances that you sent to the Middle East. He said 'We were very hard pushed at the time."'

At the same time, Mr. Galatti was discussing the problem with authorities in Washington, and on 8 December he wrote to Colonel Richmond:

"I had a long talk a week ago regarding our future status in case the African campaign should go well with us, and the British Military Attaché agreed with me that this was the time to start making preparations. . . . It would be a very easy thing to find ourselves sitting in Syria and North Africa with nothing to do. With this in view, Colonel Benson agreed to notify the War Office that we were a unit which could be attached to any British forces and if there is to be an invasion, anywhere, we could be sent along. . . .

"In our work we do it better if we go forward; it is practically imperative to expand, because if we stop it will be almost impossible to get volunteers for replacements, as you can't have people just sitting and waiting. It doesn't work that way. . . . It is time to look forward again. Enos Curtin in London approached Mr. Churchill; and I received a cable back that there would soon be further communication from the British regarding needs. . . . I have, through Wallace Phillips, taken up the question of going with the new French Army, and this question is now in the hands of our own War Department. . . . In other words, we have reached an important point in our affairs, and I can see only further expansion in various directions with everybody's blessing and a great job to be done---or else a complete stoppage of men for our Service."

In the second week in January, Colonel Richmond joined the discussions in Washington, and more definite plans emerged and began to make headway. "It was agreed that probably the best thing to put up to the War Office was, first, an extension of our Service to the Indian Army as a separate entity and, second (if this is not possible), to supplement the Service [being rendered in the Middle East]. . . . The London War Office has agreed in principle to a further extension of the Service."

Although the original AFS commitment to the British in the Middle East had not yet been fulfilled, the War Office relayed the offer of additional units to both the Middle East and the Persia and Iraq commands, stipulating that these should be "in diminution demands British units similar nature." However, in the desert the Eighth Army was chasing the Axis back with most satisfactory speed and success; and after the beginning of the Soviet offensives from Stalingrad in mid-November the build-up of Ninth Army in Syria seemed less urgent. Although Middle East said that it wanted to accept the offer of additional AFS units, it finally had to decline the offer because its War Establishment, if incomplete so far as ambulance companies went, would be unbalanced by a greater proportion of Field Service ACC units. The Persia and Iraq Force (Paiforce) then accepted the offer, later relinquishing it when U.S. troops were promised to the area. Finally, on the last day of February 1943, General Wavell accepted the new unit for India, which had not yet had its War Establishment formulated. "Although I had left Egypt too soon to have your men under my command," General Wavell later wrote, "the reports that I received fully justified the promises made that the American Field Service could do a good job in the Middle East, and I am confident that they will render equally valuable service in India."

As commander of all AFS units overseas, Colonel Richmond then went from New York to London for talks with the War Office regarding both the Middle East and the new branch in India, to be established on similar lines to the older unit. He returned to Cairo in late April and almost immediately set off, at the request of the British, for India with Major C. B. Ives, who had been offered and had accepted the position of Officer Commanding the India service. There they investigated the conditions under which the AFS was to work and assisted at the many conferences attendant on the establishment of its position in the overall India effort.

When Colonel Richmond was finally able to return to Cairo in late June 1943, further changes in AFS Headquarters had occurred. Upon the departure of Major Hinrichs in March, Major King had become commanding officer, assisted by Major Coster as adjutant (with the extra burden of liaison with the AFS French unit). The Finance Department then became the charge of Captain Perry, with Lt. P. S. Van der Vliet replacing the repatriated Lt. Myers as Field Cashier. G. S. Barker, who while training with "W" Company at Tahag had fallen from a moving ambulance and had broken bones in a leg and an arm, during his long convalescence had assisted with, and on his recovery became a member of, the Finance Department. The Personnel Department had lost Captain Rumsey to repatriation and Lt. Collins to the formation (in April) of an "advance Headquarters" in Tripoli, more or less halfway between Cairo and the units with Eighth Army. Lt. Munce was then put in charge of the Department, assisted by R. E. Ritter. And after the departure of Major Shaffer, S&T was taken over by Captain J. E. Nettleton, formerly 11 Company adjutant, who regularized its records and its dealings.

Unit 16 of 100 men, the first big unit for the Middle East since Unit A, reached Tahag on 6 September 1942, under the leadership of B. Tuckerman, Jr., and G. Fay. Here it was formed into two new platoons, called "W" AFS ACC, shortly changed to 15 (AFS) ACC (567 Coy RASC), under Capt. A. C. Geer. One platoon was commanded by Lt. E. W. Thomas II, with J. de J. Pemberton as sergeant, and Lt. A. Howe, Jr., had charge of the other, assisted by W. A. Gosline III as sergeant. Company sergeant major was W. J. McMeckan, later to be the Company's lieutenant adjutant. Captain W. K. Webb (RASC) was in charge of the workshops section and remained in this capacity until the end of the war in Europe. Captain Geer had selected the "NCOs" from veterans of the desert and Syria, and his whole organization greeted the newcomers on their arrival at the barren waste of Tahag.

The new Company remained at Tahag from 6 to 26 September, receiving a longer and more varied training than any previous unit as it was to be sent direct to the desert without the usual Syrian interlude for seasoning. New ambulances, clothing, and equipment were issued to them in the first four days, and they were given pamphlets to tell them of the past and present of the AFS in the Middle East. After 24-hour leaves in Cairo, they were given "instruction in desert navigation, desert convoy practice, sand driving, sun compass review, maintenance of vehicles, cleaning of vehicles, and inspection of vehicles and men. The following week," the account in the Bulletin continued, "each platoon went in convoy to the desert on an overnight practice run; there was more vehicle maintenance; there were parades and inspections; there were lectures on enemy aircraft recognition; camouflage nets, vehicle blankets, and reserve rations were drawn; and excess baggage was assembled and taken in lorries to be stored."

On 17 September, in the teeth of rumored disapproval by Cairo HQ, the new Company's cars were painted with an insignia designed by C. O. Saber and chosen after a Company-wide competition---an eagle with a top hat against a red cross. From the first they were known as "chickens," which they did not wholly disresemble. When on 20 September the Company was inspected by Brigadier Walker, DDMS, the chickens had been painted on all the cars, but there was considerable apprehension as to whether they would be allowed to remain. On first sight the Brigadier asked Captain Geer what the design was.

"'Our emblem, Sir, an American eagle.

"At that he laughed outright. . . . 'My only suggestion is this. . . . Have it on both doors, and make the red-cross background larger. That way it can serve a useful as well as a decorative purpose. I like to see units adopt emblems---it shows they have pride in their outfits.'"

Later, after the inspection, Brigadier Walker addressed the Company: "You have now completed your preliminary training and will soon be sent to Eighth Army to join your comrades on the desert. I warn you that there are two difficult things for you to do. I do not refer to the enemy. You can ignore him. No, the two hardest things for you to do are first, to meet the physical conditions of living in the desert---they are hard. The second is to live up to the standard set you by the men who have preceded you. Those men have done a magnificent job. They have done more than just the work required of them. They have won the affection and the esteem of the rank and file of the troops they served. If you can also do this---we shall be more than satisfied with you. I know you will."

At 6 on the morning of 26 September 1942, the new company left Tahag in convoy for the desert. They reached Treaty Bridge in Cairo at 9:30; and at 5 in the afternoon they encamped at Kilo 121 on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road to await assignment and the start of battle.